Capitol Insiders

An administrative law judge scheduled three days of hearings in January for the campaign coordination case against Attorney General Tom Horne and Kathleen Winn, who ran an independent expenditure campaign to assist Horne’s campaign during the 2010 election.

As of September 30, Arizona Public Service’s parent organization had spent $9 million - more than every 2010 gubernatorial campaign combined - in the fight over Arizona’s solar incentives and deregulation of the utility market, according to the company’s most recent earnings report.

As chief lobbyist of the National Mining Association, it falls on Hal Quinn, the group’s president and CEO, to promote his industry. That means defending coal mines and, ultimately, America’s reliance on the fuel source to power homes and businesses.

When asked how his vote for Medicaid expansion could threaten his chances at another term in the Arizona Legislature, Senate Majority Leader John McComish points to an Arizona Capitol Times newspaper hanging in a frame behind his desk “The risk of defiance,” the headline reads. “What will GOP senators’ ‘no’ votes on immigration bills cost them?”

Barely an hour before the crash Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, participated in a contentious and successful attempt to overthrow a Democratic leader. But sitting still in the middle of a freeway on his way back to Tucson, with his hands behind the wheel and with zero visibility, Farley thought how inconsequential the morning’s political drama had been against the tragedy that unfolded before him.